


Arum is a lizard

by TheLSpacer



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (on tumblr), BESIDES CLOAKE, Fluff, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday, Multi, WHAT DOES ARUM WEAR???, also hey what does arum wear?, just a little bit, please help, pretty short but hey its something!, rad bouquet, the one where arum is a lizard and does weird lizard things, this was based on that post I made a whiiiile ago, what's this??? Another silly lizard story wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 12:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19173130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLSpacer/pseuds/TheLSpacer
Summary: Arum is a lizard, and sometimes it is easy for his two flowers to forget. After all, Damien was the one who insisted there was ‘something human in his eyes’.This, of course, leads to some… interesting situations.





	Arum is a lizard

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this based on that Tumblr post about arum being a weird lizard and I can't find it now bc it's Tumblr and it hates me ah well
> 
> Enjoy?

This is the first time Damien sees Arum so… unguarded. 

Always, the ruler of the Swamp of Titan’s Blooms would insist on being prepared for every worst case scenario. An attack, such as the one caused by the fear monster, or an invasion led by the humans he had tried so hard to keep out. As such, he would take precautionary measures, keeping daggers sheathed in unlikely places, even within the Keep, or various sleeping powders, combustibles or poison squirrelled away in the many pockets on the inside of his long, purple cloak. 

But when Damien peers in through the doorway into their bedroom, he sees that Arum had said cloak discarded, folded carefully at the foot of the bed. When he pauses and stretches two of his four arms languidly above his head, Damien notes with some wonder that the various holsters for his daggers were absent too. 

Arum seems too engrossed in what he’s doing to have noticed Damien standing at the doorway, and Damien idly wonders what had captured his mind so. As he looks closer, he feels a sudden spike of panic pierce his chest. _Saint Damien above he’s looking through my unfinished poetry! The notebook meant for my eyes only. Oh tranquility half of it is unfinished and the other half completely unrevised and most of it is unholy drivel not befitting the eyes any fair creature let alone the creature who I love and SAINT DAMIEN YOUR TRANQUILITY YOUR TRANQUILITY he’s flipping to the passage I wrote just after our first duel he can’t read it he can’t he can’t he-_

Before he can stop himself, Damien finds himself lunging forward, launching himself straight toward Arum in a frenetic run. “STOP, MY LOVE!!” The voice that comes out of his mouth is high and strangled, and as he tackles Arum from behind, he hears the other’s loud, panicked shout, before a long tail promptly detaches itself from Arum’s body. 

Rilla is outside the Keep, making notes on the peculiar glowing mushroom that started growing at its base, when she hears a strangled cry that can only come from Arum, and just a second later, the telltale distraught wail of her fiance. In an instant, her recorder and clipboard are on the ground, forgotten, and Rilla is running back into the Keep, heart pounding hard in her ears. “Damien! Arum!” As she ascends the stairs, she finds herself praying to a Saint she doesn’t believe in for strength, for calm, and for them to _please please please be okay_ , as the Keep sings loudly in her ears, telling her _not to panic_ , as she abruptly stops short at their bedroom door. 

Damien and Arum are there, all right, but there are no signs of danger to either of them, other than the fact that Arum is standing stricken and motionless, eyes darting around the room and tongue flicking nervously. Next to him is Damien, clinging onto him as if his life depended on it, apologising, words spilling out of his mouth faster than even she can process, and at their feet, a single tail, green, whipcord thin, wriggling on the ground. 

Laughter spills out of her before she can stop herself, and she’s torn between examining the tail on the ground, and trying her best to _stop laughing_ and reassure Damien, still anxiously hovering over the stunned lizard. 

“Y-your tail! Saint Damien above it’s a miracle you’re still upright! and I did this. I caused this travesty to happen and oh _hhhh_ saint Ferdinand please strike me down from where I’m standing-” Damien babbles. 

“There really is no cause for concern, Honeysuckle..” Arum grumbles. The panic of losing his tail, which hadn’t happened since he was a hatchling, is fading, quickly being replaced by irritation and vague embarrassment. 

Damien mutters something incoherent, and if she hadn’t known him for as long as she has, Rilla would have had no idea what he was saying. As it was, she understood immediately. 

“Damien’s right, you know. How do you _balance_ without a tail? And doesn’t it hurt? Shit, it really does look like it hurts,” she marvels. 

“I can balance just fine,” Arum says pointedly, “case in point. It just makes walking a little…” 

“..agonising? Degrading? Undignified?” 

“uncomfortable, Damien, _uncomfortable_.” He levels a glare at Damien’s sheepish smile. “Not dissimilar to the sensation of reading an unfinished sonnet centred around my four arms.” 

Damien immediately colours, but before he can wilt too much, Arum snakes one of the aforementioned arms around his shoulders, giving a reassuring squeeze. _Just teasing you, Honeysuckle_. Monster he may be, but not a _heartless_ one. 

He turns back to Rilla. “And to your other point, not having a tail would be a problem for normal lizards, but as you know, I’m-“ 

“- a magical construct that defies all biological explanation, we know, we know.” 

Rilla grins, and nips at Arum’s frill. “For healing. You know, since you probably won’t let me kiss the stump.” 

“..you’re the shoddiest healer I’ve ever met. And don’t do that. It’s condescending.” 

“Your beautiful tail is twitching on the ground. You’re still looking pretty mortified. Let me coddle you a little.” 

“Don’t tease him, my Rilla, after all, a tail does not a lizard make,” Damien notes wisely. He gently extricates himself from Arum’s one-armed embrace, and kisses another part of his frill, ignoring the indignant rattling coming from the (pseudo)-lizard’s throat.

“The both. Of you. Are. Ridiculous.”

“But you love us?” The two humans say in unison. 

“I’m not dignifying that with a response.” 

…though he does eventually relent, and lets himself be coddled. They’re _his_ ridiculous humans, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh and another thing you may notice is that I STILL HAVE NO IDEA what sorta top Arum is wearing underneath that cloak. Like what???
> 
> Anyways have a gr8 lizard kissin' and thanks for reading!


End file.
